Pragmatism

PRAGMATISM. — A school of contemporary philosophy, among the most successful and widespread, which has had broad and at times profound repercussions not only in the field of philosophy proper, but also in those of science, pedagogy, psychology, and even religion (see the individual entries). It is not identical with the so-called “philosophy of action,” but is certainly one of the latter’s most significant aspects, although the latter also has others—for example, Ollé Laprune’s doctrine of “moral certainty” or Blondel’s “integral realism” (see)—which cannot be reduced to pragmatism proper, just as modernism (see) cannot, even though in some representatives of the latter, e.g. Le Roy, the pragmatist influence is considerable. Apart from so-called religious pragmatism (for which see MODERNISM) and other forms of “philosophy of action,” such as that of Unamuno (see), various currents can be distinguished within pragmatism: a) logical and epistemological pragmatism (Peirce, Vailati); b) empirical-spiritualist pragmatism (James); c) humanistic pragmatism (Schiller); d) fictionalist pragmatism (Vaihinger); e) instrumentalist pragmatism (Dewey).

The founder of the first—and of pragmatism in general—may be considered the American scientist C. S. Peirce, whose 1878 essay How to make our ideas clear is, as it were, the manifesto of the new philosophy. For Peirce, the meaning of a conception consists in its practical consequences; that is, in order to determine which universal notions are real, it is enough to apply the pragmatist criterion of considering what effects of practical importance the object of our conception has. “The meaning of every assertion of ours lies in the future, and therefore the entire positive sense of our ideas resides in their practical consequences. When new ideas do not determine differences in the practical results of thought, they are merely various ‘ways of saying the same thing.’”

The Italian pragmatists G. Vailati (see) and M. Calderoni based themselves on the method of pragmatism, wishing—especially the former—to remain logicians, unlike James, who declared (A pluralistic universe, New York 1909, p. 214) that he would “abandon logic frankly, decisively, irrevocably.” Vailati attaches great importance to the study of the structure and development of language (see), and to that of the nature of the functions it performs, convinced that defining terms precisely eliminates illusory disagreements, as well as the illusion of those who believe they are “saying something even when they are saying nothing” (Scritti, Florence 1911, pp. 895 ff.). Accordingly, the best “methodological canon” for avoiding the equivocations of language and not using meaningless words is “the one that recommends determining the meaning of every abstract phrase or proposition by examining the consequences drawn from it and the applications made of it by whoever enunciates it, regarding two phrases or propositions as equivalent, or as two ways of saying the same thing (Peirce), whenever they are used by whoever adopts them as a means of arriving at the same particular conclusions” (ibid., p. 702). For both Vailati and Calderoni, the Peircean formula—the meaning of a conception consists in its practical consequences—is not to be understood in either a utilitarian or a subjectivist sense. Pragmatism is “utilitarian” only “insofar as it leads to the rejection of a certain number of useless,” that is, merely apparent, questions (ibid., p. 121). Its formula is nothing more than an invitation to introduce “experimentalism not only into the solution but also into the choice of the questions to be treated; to pour into the words, which are the object of our controversies, their practical and experimental content, in order to avoid confusions and sophisms” (Calderoni, Scritti, I, Florence 1924, p. 217). For both Vailati and Calderoni, experience is not only a means of proving assertions and theories, but above all a criterion of their meaning, that is, a criterion for selecting and eliminating the questions generated by the assertions themselves. For Mario M. Rossi, whose first phase of thought was pragmatist in inspiration, provision is in itself already not only a criterion of meaning, but also of truth (Saggio sul rimorso, Turin 1933, p. 4).

The term pragmatism, used by Peirce, was taken up, together with other theses, in 1898 by W. James (see) in a speech at the University of California. But if, on the one hand, with James pragmatism became a movement of worldwide influence and importance, on the other it turned in an empirical-spiritualist direction, which was no longer that of Peirce. “Radical empiricism” (as James called his philosophy) is quite different from the classical empiricism of the English tradition. The experience of which the American philosopher speaks is future experience, the test and verification of knowledge. Choosing means with a view to an end is the distinctive characteristic of intelligent procedure, differentiating it from mechanical procedure, which neither chooses means nor pursues ends: “to pursue future ends and choose means for their attainment, this is the mark and criterion for asserting that mentality is present in a phenomenon” (The principles of psychology, I, New York 1890, p. 8). Thus volitional activity dominates rational and sensory activity: perception (see) and thought (see) exist only with a view to conduct. Both science and philosophy are constructed with a view to human ends; they serve—and this is the purpose of thought—action, so that human beings may act effectively in the world. Hence James’s defense of moral and religious “beliefs” (when they are of the kind that cannot be shown to be either true or false, and are “live” and “important”), insofar as they are useful and necessary for effective action. They are accepted as true, and one therefore runs the risk of being mistaken; but the risk is inevitable, because even those who refuse to believe take upon themselves the risk of a negative decision. It is therefore fitting to accept responsibility and risk, to assume the “may be,” to choose, to will to believe (The will to believe is the title of one of James’s celebrated works). Thus James believes he can preserve and guarantee moral and religious requirements, give his pragmatism as a “will to believe” a spiritualist character, and ground upon it his pluralistic conception of the universe, of which God is one among many beings, himself also finite, existing in time, “creating his history as we ourselves do” and among us (A pluralistic universe, New York 1909, p. 319). How such a God could satisfy the demands of religious consciousness and guarantee an order of truth in the human and physical world remains incomprehensible, and therefore constitutes an ineffective belief—that is, one devoid even of pragmatist value.

It does not seem accurate to say that the Englishman F. C. S. Schiller, following Peirce more faithfully than James did, brought pragmatism back within the boundaries of logic and epistemology; rather, it should be said that he understands logic in a manner very close to Jamesian pragmatism. And since he derives every thought or logical procedure from the needs, feelings, beliefs, and passions of the human soul, his may be called humanistic pragmatism, for which everything is conditioned by the demands of action or by practical need. In short, truth—and every truth—is relative to man. His critique of formal logic, which he regards as a pure game of the intellect and a pleasant pastime (Formal logic, 2nd ed., London 1931, p. 388), and his reduction of any principle—which does not obey a practical interest—to a verbal proposition, lead Schiller to accept that of utility as the sole valid criterion and to measure by it the degree of truth of the sciences, mathematics, philosophy, etc. In this sense, Schiller regards the ancient saying of Protagoras, “man is the measure of all things,” as philosophy’s greatest discovery, without this entailing any justification for the use of fictions, errors, and lies, which may nevertheless be useful to someone. According to Schiller, there is a kind of selective principle by which the individual, in the course of his life, tends to abandon certain initial interests and to choose others that are more substantial and truer. Social action operates upon this choice: of the various choices, always made on the basis of the evaluative principle of utility, only those survive that possess social utility and respond best to the aspirations of the greatest number of people in a given historical condition. Schiller’s humanistic subjectivism (v.) relativism (v.).

The two forms of pragmatism represented by James and Schiller influenced several Italian writers who, from 1903 to 1907, gave life to the Leonardo movement, and especially G. Papini (closer to James) and G. Prezzolini (closer to Schiller). The journal also had Vailati and Calderoni among its contributors and thus represented, in its best and least impassioned polemical pages, the three forms of pragmatism of Peirce, James, and Schiller, with open disagreements between Vailati-Calderoni on the one hand and Papini-Prezzolini on the other—the two writers who, ultimately, marked the character of the journal and gave it a polemical character, more critical than constructive, aimed at renewing culture and philosophy. According to Papini, the fundamental character of pragmatism is the “de-rigidification of theories and beliefs, that is, recognizing their purely instrumental value; saying that they have value, that is, only relative to an end or an order of ends and that they are therefore capable of being changed, altered, and transformed whenever necessary” (P., Florence 1927, p. 91).

James’s pragmatism found in Italy another original and philosophically elaborated expression in the “experimentalism” of A. Aliotta, whose thought, however, having passed through various phases, also reveals other influences. Humanistic pragmatism, on the other hand, had its representatives in Italy, even before Schiller, in G. Cesca and P. R. Troiano. The former, proceeding from a strictly empiricist and phenomenalist standpoint, confines the beginning and end of human activity to the external world, phenomenon (v.); this activity, by creating civilization, at the same time frees itself from the “illusion” Absolute (v.) and creates the regnum hominis, the ceaseless product of the transformative action “of the external environment in accordance with human needs” (La filosofia dell’azione, Palermo 1908, p. 23). The latter, although he does not wish his “humanism” to be voluntarism (v.), ultimately accepts the pragmatic principle of knowledge as a means by which reality is transformed for our practical ends, utilitarianism (v.), which is realized in a state of “calm” (the absence of pleasure and pain), or alipia (Le basi dell’umanesimo, Turin 1907, p. 150).

H. VAIHINGER, HANS (v.) develops his own personal form of pragmatism Kant (v.), Lange (v.), MARCHE (v.) and Avenarius (v.), Nietzsche (v.). Vaihinger too subordinates thought to action, but does not identify truth with utility: contradictory and erroneous beliefs may also be useful. Only pure experience is true, but man is not satisfied with it and therefore creates fictions (the immortality of the soul, freedom, God, etc.), useful for practical life: they give him the “illusion” of satisfying his deepest needs. Vaihinger exaggerates the Kantian agnosticism concerning the “ideas” of pure reason, which are denied all cognitive value and granted only a regulative one. There is one difference: for Kant, man must act as if God existed, the soul were immortal, etc.; for Vaihinger, these beliefs are “fictions,” and man acts as if the fictions he has created were realities. According to this philosophy of the “as if” (Philosophie des Als-Ob is the title of Vaihinger’s most significant work), fictions are neither truths nor hypotheses; acquiring an ever greater awareness of this is the progress of philosophy: becoming conscious that fictions are fictions and nevertheless making use of them for the purposes of life. This is, ultimately, an absurd claim, since a fiction, myth, or illusion cannot possess any power of attraction or stimulation once it is recognized as such. Fiction as fiction has neither cognitive nor pragmatic value.

Before Vaihinger, but under positivism (v.) and with greater adherence to the Kantian position, the Italian G. Marchesini had maintained that moral and religious ideals are not “fictions.” Marchesini emphasizes their social importance: “Act as if what is socially true and socially imposed as absolute were also true and absolute for you” (Le finzioni dell’anima, Bari 1905, p. 197; Vaihinger’s op. cit. dates from 1911). Marchesini attributes to fiction a psychological power whose efficacy is indispensable in moral conduct, but, more consistently than Vaihinger, recognizes this power only insofar as something is believed as if it were a truth corresponding to a reality.

The “instrumentalism” (v.) of the American J. Dewey is the most influential and debated form of pragmatism today. For Dewey too, the starting point is experience, but primitive and integral experience, which also includes error and perversity, ignorance and risk. There is a close and indissoluble connection between nature and man: man is part of nature and feels rooted in it, but he is that part which is destined to modify nature’s own structure and realize its meaning. Therefore ideas and thought in general are an instrument for organizing future experience, and “reason necessarily has a constructive function” (Philosophy and civilisation, New York 1931, p. 25). To convince ourselves that error, evil, disorder, the irrational, and death are realities—instead of deceiving ourselves by calling them appearances—and to struggle to reduce their effects and limit their scope: this is the task of man and of human society, gradually (but never completely) realized through the active work of human intelligence, “valid within the limits of its success.” Every theory, doctrine, or mental construction is an effective way (when it is effective), on man’s part, of transforming reality so as to ensure his use and enjoyment of the goods he needs. Men think when they are stimulated by need and unrest, when they have disturbances to calm and difficulties to overcome. “A life of repose, of success without effort, would be a life without thought” (Ricostruzione filosofica, Italian trans., Bari 1930, p. 138).

With Dewey, p. displays one of its most dangerous aspects: it is no longer merely a matter of subordinating thought to action, but: a) of eliminating every trace of spiritualism; b) of limiting the function of intelligence to its effectiveness in transforming reality (and any reality whatsoever) and consequently of denying that essences or substances or immutable principles exist; c) with the aim of satisfying man’s needs and, together with them, his stimulating anxieties, which are real and effective when they can be satisfied within the sphere of the natural and historical order. Dewey’s p. differs little from the fundamental theses of Marx and Marxism (v.); it may be called the “American” form of the latter, but its consequences, from the moral, religious, and philosophical points of view, are identical. This explains the sympathies Dewey enjoys among certain European theorists or followers of Marxism. This is a serious observation if one bears in mind that the United States of America, anti-Marxist in politics and economics, now regard Dewey as their official philosopher and national glory.

But the whole of p., apart from certain contributions to the problems of science, language, empirical and pedagogical psychology, and apart from the merit of its vigorous appeal to a sense of the concrete, is a dangerous, erroneous, and philosophically null orientation of thought, worn down by an invincible internal contradiction: every moral, religious, scientific, etc. truth is provisional and contingent, and yet one must believe that it is true and necessary. Thus, on the one hand, it is acknowledged that truth, if it is not believed to be such, loses all pragmatic value, while, on the other, it is valid only because of its pragmatic value. There are only two possibilities: either truth is effective in action only insofar as it is and is believed to be truth, in which case it is acknowledged that one does not accept it as true because of its practical consequences but insofar as one believes it and it is truth; or one knows that a principle is not truth and claims that, despite knowing this, it has practical efficacy, in which case one is saying something meaningless, since a principle known not to be true cannot exercise any stimulus or possess any efficacy. P. thus comes to acknowledge that the pragmatic criterion has no value as a criterion of truth; and in this way it denies itself.

Kantian elements converge in p. (deprived of their speculative meaning), as do positivistic and empiricist elements (though from a positivism and empiricism that are now more critical and now more naïve), along with others evolution (v.) in its various developments, by certain recent positions in the philosophy of science, and by the influence of scientific discoveries, whose application to philosophical problems is made arbitrarily and crudely; all of this is marshalled in support of the pragmatic dogma principle (v.) or of a cognitive process is given by its practical efficacy, that is, by success—which amounts to adopting the contingent and empirical, the temporary or relative, as the criterion of truth. This is criterion (v.) of truth, the negation of philosophy (G. Papini, op. cit., p. 81, writes that p. “rather than a philosophy, is a method for doing without philosophy”), a sometimes exacerbated form of making truth into a kind of “democratic” candidate on a list of so many alleged truths, awaiting a majority of votes in order to proclaim themselves true or untrue; and the outcome depends on the effectiveness of the staging and the publicity. P. ultimately denies every truth and resolves itself into a form of empirical historicism and, finally, materialism (v.); and,

when it calls itself religious and spiritualist, fideism (v.) no less ruinous, a kind of mysticism of action and will which, unsupported by a firm rational principle or a well-founded concept of transcendence, immanentism (v.) and consequently toward a mysticism of man’s transformative and operative efficacy, with a view to establishing a future society ever more capable of satisfying his needs and enjoying the goods of the world; that is, it converges with Marxism.